Selling Churches

[GoingByzantine]

Is selling churches to developers acceptable? I know the Catholic Church has sold property during church consolidations, but apparently Anglicans do too. I'm guessing all of our church communions have at some point.

Swapping prophets for profits: Anglican Church selling houses of God to property developers - Mirror Online

Do you consider selling a sanctuary to be an "ok" practice? Even if it is to a housing developer?

 

[ebia]

Is selling churches to developers acceptable? I know the Catholic Church has sold property during church consolidations, but apparently Anglicans do too. I'm guessing all of our church communions have at some point. Swapping prophets for profits: Anglican Church selling houses of God to property developers - Mirror Online Do you consider selling a sanctuary to be an "ok" practice? Even if it is to a housing developer?

What else can you do?

It's not news - anglicans have had to sell many unwanted church buildings.

 

[GoingByzantine]

What else can you do?

Convert the building to a homeless shelter, a food bank, a home for abuse victims. They can also sell the church to another Christian denom., who could continue using it as a house of worship.

 

[Biblicist]

Convert the building to a homeless shelter, a food bank, a home for abuse victims. They can also sell the church to another Christian denom., who could continue using it as a house of worship.

Even though you've offered a few good suggestions, these things all cost money and often the buildings can be very old where they require a lot of maintenance.

But its always sad to see even a small historical church building being turned into a cafe or office.

 

[ebia]

Convert the building to a homeless shelter, a food bank, a home for abuse victims. They can also sell the church to another Christian denom., who could continue using it as a house of worship.

For most redundant churches none of those are viable options.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

My former parish, St. Matthew, was closed because the membership declined for a number of reasons; the biggest one being the mass exodus of heterodox members after we got a very orthodox Pastor. Since, in our Synod, the Congregations owns the property, we decided to sell it to the highest bidder and put the rather sizable proceeds and assets to good use; it was divided up between missions, Synod and local charities.

The developer severed the Chruch building from the parcel of land and sold it to a rather universalist group of NDs. While there was a decommissioning service, to see that Church where my daughter was confirmed, and word and sacrament preached in accord with our confessions still hurts me. In all honesty, it should have been sold on the condition that it be demolished.

 

[ebia]

. In all honesty, it should have been sold on the condition that it be demolished.

Of course for many heritage buildings even that wouldn't be an option.

 

[Anhelyna]

It's a hard decision as to what you do with a Church building that's surplus to needs.

You combine two parishes into one [ for all the obvious and varying reasons ] and are then left with deciding which building to retain and which to dispose of.

With the RC Church it's the Archdiocese/Diocese who owns the property so they have to do it and whatever they do is wrong in someone's eyes. Me - I don't envy them their job.

Clearly if it's being sold to a developer , or indeed anyone , it has to be de-commissioned , the Altar and everything from the Sanctuary removed.

A small building [ I'm thinking here of a single story ex Episcopal Church that I knew about ] was converted very successfully into 3 separate dwellings. It looked well done - externally there were very few changes - a couple of windows were made into House entrance doors. I'm told that the interiors were excellent - but I personally wouldn't have been happy living there.

Another example - again Episcopal - they had outgrown their original building - so having enough land they built another and retained the original as the parish hall . Good job they did as in another 10 years due to population ageing and people moving away the new building was about 3 times too big ! Result - it was sold off to a developer - a modern block of flats [ apartments ] was built - the Episcopal Diocese got a lot of money and the small dwindling congregation were happy .

I can't help thinking that demolition is possibly the better action - you really can't expect that having sold the building, you can keep any control over its use in the future.

Ebia - you are absolutely correct about heritage buildings [ our term is Listed ] that certainly adds yet another dimension to it

 

[Liberasit]

Convert the building to a homeless shelter, a food bank, a home for abuse victims. They can also sell the church to another Christian denom., who could continue using it as a house of worship.

If they sell a redundant church, they can use the money raised to build a new church in a more appropriate location.

I don't think it is in an individual church's best interest to raise and spend the money required to convert a listed building. It is much better to sell it to property developer who can do is without the constraints of being a charity or part of a diocese.

A church becomes redundant because there is no one coming to it. Demographics have changed since old churches were built, and they are simply in the wrong place (and there were too many and they were too big right from the start). There are many inner city churches with no one living in their parish due to things like slum clearances (100 years ago). This will be the same for a different denomination. If a different denomination can make it work, the so should the original owner.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I don't see a good and easy answer.

It seems wrong to cripple a parish or congregation or diocese or synod with what some could call sentimental considerations.

On the other hand, it seems wrong to turn what was sacred over to base or even profane use.

Probably it is best decided on a case-by-case basis, with a missions-minded outreach to help others or an appropriate historic use preferred. But that is probably not going to be financially possible most of the time.

Failing that (as I think will usually be the case) perhaps selling the building to a closely-related denomination might be best. Again, probably a rare scenario.

Most often it's probably going to come down to either demolition or being repurposed into whatever makes someone money. At least the proceeds can benefit the parish, or be used for good cause. I admit I'd rather see some stipulation that limited the use somewhat.

That being said, I wouldn't at all mind living in a decommissioned Church. When we were house hunting years ago, I kept having a recurring dream of buying a white wooden house in the country with a wide front porch that had been a church. I half-expected one of our realtors to take us to such a house, but it never happened.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It is good to keep a building if it is possible but if it is not then it must be disposed of. It is, after all, a building and the memories associated with it will not die if it is gone even though they may be less poignant ...

I'd be rather unhappy to see saint Peter's sold, I am confident that the Catholic people of the world would give whatever was needed to keep it but if it were impossible then even losing saint Peter's would not destroy the church or render it meaningless.

Consider Hagia Sophia; our Orthodox brethren had to suffer its loss and conversion to a Mosque yet Orthodoxy continued despite the loss.

 

[~Anastasia~]

It is good to keep a building if it is possible but if it is not then it must be disposed of. It is, after all, a building and the memories associated with it will not die if it is gone even though they may be less poignant ...

I'd be rather unhappy to see saint Peter's sold, I am confident that the Catholic people of the world would give whatever was needed to keep it but if it were impossible then even losing saint Peter's would not destroy the church or render it meaningless.

Consider Hagia Sophia; our Orthodox brethren had to suffer its loss and conversion to a Mosque yet Orthodoxy continued despite the loss.

Hagia Sophia is a good case in point. At least it is not destroyed, and we can have some small hope of it returning. But it is a painful thought.

 

[MKJ]

I think it can be sad for the people connected with a church if it is sold, and sometimes the reasons for needing to sell it are sad, but I don't really have a problem with it if the building is no longer needed as a church.

I wouldn't rather see them knocked down, I think it is generally wrong and also wasteful to knock down a beautiful building.

I don't think the idea that such a building could be converted to something like a shelter is generally going to make sense. Often buildings are closed because the parish can't support them, so they aren't going to be able to support that either.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I think it can be sad for the people connected with a church if it is sold, and sometimes the reasons for needing to sell it are sad, but I don't really have a problem with it if the building is no longer needed as a church.

I wouldn't rather see them knocked down, I think it is generally wrong and also wasteful to knock down a beautiful building.

I don't think the idea that such a building could be converted to something like a shelter is generally going to make sense. Often buildings are closed because the parish can't support them, so they aren't going to be able to support that either.

I learned the truth about St. Matthew too late. The Congregation was a bunch of radicals that left my present Congregation, St. Peters. They snowed the Synod saying there was a need because of expanding housing developments. There was not. They harassed every Pastor they had, including the one that was there when the Chruch closed. When it did close, there was only a handful of us that remained Lutheran, the rest joined ND, Baptist and Penticostal Churches; yet St. Matt's was and remained liturgical to the end. Out of the 120 or so on the roll, counting our Pastor and myself, there was about 12 Lutherans when the dust settled.

The building was built in the '60s and for that time was nice enough; but it should never have been built in the first place. The radicals that left should have been excommunicated.

 

[MKJ]

I learned the truth about St. Matthew too late. The Congregation was a bunch of radicals that left my present Congregation, St. Peters. They snowed the Synod saying there was a need because of expanding housing developments. There was not. They harassed every Pastor they had, including the one that was there when the Chruch closed. When it did close, there was only a handful of us that remained Lutheran, the rest joined ND, Baptist and Penticostal Churches; yet St. Matt's was and remained liturgical to the end. Out of the 120 or so on the roll, counting our Pastor and myself, there was about 12 Lutherans when the dust settled.

The building was built in the '60s and for that time was nice enough; but it should never have been built in the first place. The radicals that left should have been excommunicated.

Practically speaking, I would say that not all buildings should be saved. Some are bad buildings - they are poorly built, or dangerous, or ugly or unpleasant to use. So there is no reason to keep them for their beauty.

But knocking something down and rebuilding can be very wasteful - even a more inefficient building may be a better use of resources to convert it and make it more efficient rather than to build something new. New materials represent a lot of resources, including energy resources.

I think I tend to feel, when a situation has gone bad with a congregation like that, that ultimately while it may seem more painful to see the building used in a different way, in the end that is part of working through the pain of the situation.

There seem to have been a lot of bad building decisions in the 60's. Housing developments in themselves were often examples of really poor public planning.

 

[Gnarwhal]

Being an architecture and history nerd, I think it's tragic at the very least to see a beautiful church building be used for anything less. There's this great old church downtown that I sometimes enjoy going to. It started out as an Episcopal Church but the building was later relocated a few blocks over and then eventually the church sold it so they could build this hideous mid-century modern travesty on the north side of town. The old church was deconsecrated and became a Chinese restaurant with a club in the lower level. Fortunately back in the mid-1990's a Continuing Anglican community bought it, reconsecrated it and restored it back to church use.

Now, if it's just some old tin building no different from a warehouse or shop building, then scrap it. I hate to see churches bought and sold, especially beautiful old ones in the US and UK. Sure, the idea of seeing them in the hands of a heterodox/heretical group is unnerving and almost insulting, but I would also rather see them used by a non-denominational group than be sacked altogether.

 

[MoreCoffee]

My parish sold its old buildings and old school. The building built in the 1970s was demolished but the building build in the early 20th century was heritage listed and could not be demolished. It stands empty at the moment and we do not know what it will become. It is build of red bricks and we wanted to move it to the current location of our parish church buildings and school but the cost was prohibitive. I hope we can reacquire it one day.

 

[SteveNZ]

An interesting thought....
In Christchurch NZ a city of about 300,000 folk, they had a nasty earthquake. Probably 1/4 of all churches were damaged beyond use.
*I live about 1 1/2 hours away by car. And we felt the earthquake 'good'.

Overnight the congregations realized that a Christian fellowship worshiping safe and well was far more important than the building. And churches of all denominations, out of necessity, shared buildings for worship.

YES losing or selling a church building with generations of memories is 'rough as guts'. But this earthquake let the Christian community learn about the 'Church' being the fellowship.

THE GOOD - All of that empty land was available for new structures that can be used for Christians to serve their communities. They are all asking our Lord '..what can we build? Do we need to rebuild?....'.

Pray and let the Lord figure out his Church and our buildings.

 

[Gnarwhal]

An interesting thought....
In Christchurch NZ a city of about 300,000 folk, they had a nasty earthquake. Probably 1/4 of all churches were damaged beyond use.
*I live about 1 1/2 hours away by car. And we felt the earthquake 'good'.

Overnight the congregations realized that a Christian fellowship worshiping safe and well was far more important than the building. And churches of all denominations, out of necessity, shared buildings for worship.

YES losing or selling a church building with generations of memories is 'rough as guts'. But this earthquake let the Christian community learn about the 'Church' being the fellowship.

THE GOOD - All of that empty land was available for new structures that can be used for Christians to serve their communities. They are all asking our Lord '..what can we build? Do we need to rebuild?....'.

Pray and let the Lord figure out his Church and our buildings.

I feel more connected to God through beautiful art and architecture. So... meh.

 

[Anhelyna]

I feel more connected to God through beautiful art and architecture. So... meh.

So do I - but if that building with beautiful art and architecture is empty , because there are no people to worship in it, the question is

what do you do with it ?